


Emotional Sincerity

by discountsatanism



Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Why Did I Write This?, let's see how many people i can make accidentally stumble into seth's Bad Habits, seth gets sleep and scrambled eggs which are basically the same thing, seth needs to get some sleep and possibly some therapy, they are not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-03 05:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8698549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountsatanism/pseuds/discountsatanism
Summary: You'd think a guy could just force his teenaged war veteran cousin to get some sleep and then drop him off at his grandparents' house with no repercussions, but no, this had to happen instead.





	1. Chapter 1

Seth doesn’t know exactly when he stopped sleeping, or when he stopped seeing clearly, or when closing his eyes started to feel like coming home mixed with a wave of fear, but it’s midnight and he’s outside and he doesn’t really know how he got here.

A fairy is next to him, glowing softly as she does something to the flowers that makes them grow. Seth curls his arms tighter around his knees and feels the bush against his back move.

The stars are beautiful, but Seth can’t remember if they look different than they did before. Maybe they do. Maybe he’s not really seeing them at all. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know anything. He thinks he might know why he’s sitting in the yard.

It was Kendra’s fault, he thinks. She’d told him to stay in the yard if he was going to do stupid things like take an aimless walk through the preserve.

He wants to take an aimless walk through the preserve, but when he tries to stand up, his legs buckle under him. This happens, he knows. He’s not going to be awake forever. Sooner or later his eyes will close and everything for the next nine hours will be dying and caves that close in on themselves. But he’s awake right now, and he’s going to enjoy the stars even if it’s too cold and he feels like a ball of energy and the stars aren’t even that great after the six hundredth time, they’re just a reminder that he doesn’t know anything which always makes him remember that nobody even notices what’s happening and nobody tells him anything.

Seth leans back so he’s pressed against the grass, crossing his arms against his chest. He closes his eyes for a bit and feels the burn of four days without sleep against them.

He thinks he hears someone say his name, but ignores it, opening his eyes and looking at what he thinks is a constellation.

“Seth!” he thinks he hears again.

“Seth, are you okay?”

Except suddenly someone is standing over him, and it’s getting harder to pretend that nobody is there.

“Seth, are you okay?” Warren asks, nudging the toe of his shoe against Seth’s side. “You look terrible.”

Seth nods, vaguely remembering that Warren hadn’t come to the house for a few days.

“Seth, you gotta sit up,” Warren says, grabbing his arm and tugging lightly on it. “You look sick.”

Seth lets himself be pulled up. “I’m not sick,” he says.

“You look like me when I was still cursed  _ and _ you’re lying outside in forty-degree weather,” Warren points out. “You’re wearing a t-shirt. It’s time to come inside.”

He doesn’t want to go back to the house. He wants to stay outside and look at the stars. But Warren is stronger and he’s exhausted, so Seth lets himself be pulled to his feet, but he collapses as soon as Warren lets him go.

“Jesus,” Warren mutters. “How did you even get outside.”

Seth shrugs from his place on the ground.  _ That hurt _ , some part of him thinks. He feels like he’s rising.

Warren is  _ carrying  _ him, Seth realizes suddenly. 

“Let me  _ go _ ,” Seth says, hitting Warren in the chest.

“No,” Warren says, “not until you get strong enough to actually punch me enough to hurt. I swear, you look worse than the revenant.”

Seth gives up quicker than he wants to, but gravity is heavy now that he’s off the ground and Warren is warm, so he settles for making annoyed noises and struggling weakly.

He’s dumped onto a bed, and sits up immediately, ready to fight.

“This isn’t the house,” he says.

Warren looks around. “. . .that’s correct. You’re right. Oh.”

Seth doesn’t have the energy to deal with continuing the conversation, so he just glares at Warren.

“I’m not taking you outside,” Warren says, “And you can’t walk, so good luck getting out again.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Seth says.

“Lies. Go to bed, at least.”

“ _ No, _ ” Seth says, trying to push thoughts of being ripped limb from limb in a cave and slowly eaten by maggots while people laugh out of his head long enough to be at least a little forceful.

“Why not?” Warren asks.

Whoops.

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nope.”

Seth groans, and tries to stop his eyes from closing. “Let me go.”

“I’m not even touching you.”

“How about  _ you _ sleep?”

“I’m actually healthy,” Warren counters. “You look like a corpse. Just lay down for five minutes.”

Seth knows that this is a trick and he’s angry, but he’s also really tired and when he lets his eyes close for too long, they don’t open.

When he wakes up for the first time, Bahumat is standing over him. Seth tries to jump up, but there’s something on him and he can’t  _ move _ and it’s too late and he sees his blood on the walls and there’s pain and bits of flesh landing in his eyes as he screams and tries to fight, but it’s no use and he feels himself die.

He wakes up in a grove and sees the  _ nail _ next to him and tries to run but he can’t and trips and feels the nail digging into his skin. He hears someone above him- the  _ Sphinx _ \- tell him that nail would kill him if it touches his skin and then he feels shadows forcing through his veins.

Then he’s a shadow, and he sees Kendra talking to someone in a hood and he doesn’t know who it is but it’s someone bad and he has to warn her but his hands slip through her and he remembers that he’s the only one who can talk to shadows and he’s so  _ useless _ , and then the figure takes of his mask and it’s Navarog and suddenly Seth is dying again.

He wakes up and sits up to find that he’s been sitting at the dinner table and his grandparents are staring at him. One of them asks him why he was sleeping at the table, honestly, didn’t he have any regard for rules, and he tried to apologize but there was a stabbing pain and he bled out before he had time to explain.

And then the blurring starts and he thinks he sees someone standing over him but then they just  _ stand there _ and suddenly there’s something cool on his head and then there are lights above him that look soft and warm and colorful, and then something tries to kill him but he doesn’t die.

When he finally wakes up all the way, blinking furiously and trying to remember what the real world looks like so he can tell if he’s in it, Warren is sitting next to him, staring at the floor.

Seth feels better and worse, like he’s just stolen the unicorn horn and is being hit with waves of panic even as the blanket of victory settles over him, except he’s still a little bit bleary from having slept a long time(it’s always a long time), but he can speak clearly again.

“Ugh,” he says, and Warren jumps.

They look at each other.

“That explains some things,” Warren says. 

“What,” Seth replies, pushing off the blanket(blanket?), and sitting up, feeling the bones in his spine crackle and pop. “Ow.”

Warren grabs something off the floor, which turns out to be a mug of hot chocolate, and holds it out to Seth. “For obvious reasons.”

Seth took a sip, and winces. “This is hotter than it usually is.”

“That’s because you’re all wimps,” Warren says. “Also, I forgot to check the water until it was boiling.”

Seth manages a few more sips. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

Warren sighs. “Yeah. That. Alright, we’re about to enter the emotional sincerity part of our relationship-”

“Oh no,” Seth says.

“-same, but it’s necessary.” Warren makes a movement with his left hand. “So what I think was happening when you were sleeping was what you tend to call PTSD.”

“I’m not a war veteran,” Seth says immediately. “PTSD?”

“Actually, you technically are a war veteran,” Warren points out. “I mean, you did kind of fight in a war, and you’re alive.”

“Does this mean I get a discount at Target?” Seth asks, covering his face.

“Nope, that’s only for the army,” Warren says. “And anyway, you don’t have to be a war veteran. It’s just a side benefit for you.”

Seth looks up to glare at him. “Does this mean I have to walk around and talk about the war and how great kids have it these days?”

“No,” Warren says, “but you might get, say, horrifying memories every time you try to go to sleep.”

Seth takes a swig of the hot chocolate, burns his tongue, and swallows quickly. He looks around Warren’s cabin(mostly empty, with a stack of books covered in something that might be blood), and tries to figure out how to react to this.

“I’m not old enough to drive,” he tells Warren.

Warren, who’s been awkwardly glancing around this entire conversation, finally looks straight at him. “I know,” he says.

“My nightmares aren’t even  _ about _ that,” Seth mutters. “They’re about the revenant and-” he decides to leave out the ones about his grandparents, because that’s honestly just embarrassing. His grandparents don’t deserve that.

“And?”

“Stuff,” Seth says, looking down at his feet.

Warren lets out a muffled sound. “This is a mess. I am a mess.” He waves his hands around a bit. “My skills are based off of, like, cracking jokes at inopportune times and getting injured by walking three feet. You gotta work with me here.”

“I’m not much better,” Seth says, looking back up. 

Warren just groans. “Yeah, I give up. Want some eggs? I own eggs.”

Seth is hungry, so he nods, and Warren makes a relieved noise and practically runs to the kitchen. Seth sits in his bed, kicking the blanket all the way off his feet and trying to stand up. It hurts a little bit, and he’s nowhere near  _ steady _ , but he’s up and it gets better the more he walks. He stumbles around a bit, looks out the window(trees, trees, more trees, and additional trees, mostly), and opens the door to look out.

“Wow,” he says, looking at the sun. It’s near noon, and he feels like he always does- like he’s missed half a year.

Seth doesn’t really know what to do. He could go back to the house, but that would mean another round of “Hey, you disappeared for two days again, why do you keep doing that?” and trying to look completely normal while his grandparents finalize their decisions to give the entire preserve to Kendra and strike him from the guest book. He could stay here, but Warren seems like he wants to help him(whatever that means, Seth isn’t even going to think about that, nope, doesn’t exist), and he doesn’t really know how to deal with life right now, much less trying to fix what’s left of his. He could always bolt for the preserve gate and run, but that’s a terrible plan for obvious reasons, and the last shreds of dignity he has left are telling him that he still lives in a giant yard full of cool monsters and there is no way he’s leaving that behind. So he just sits in the threshold of Warren’s cabin and stares at the trees and the one or two fairies that float past, trying to figure out if he’s seen three million fairies too many, or three billion fairies too many.

Some time later, Warren taps him on the shoulder. “I made eggs,” he says, handing Seth a plate and sitting down next to him in the doorway.

“You’re not going to try to talk to me about the nightmares again?” Seth asks, picking up an egg and stuffing it in his mouth. “These have ketchup on them,” Seth says. “And onions.”

“No, never again, that was a disaster,” Warren says. “And I’m just trying to culture you a little, ok? Least I can do.”

The eggs with ketchup and onions are actually pretty good, and Seth is hungrier than he thinks(like always), so he finishes them in record time and sets the empty plate on his lap.

“Nice day,” Seth says. “How much did I miss?”

“Oh, another apocalypse,” Warren says casually.

Seth snaps his head around. “Really?”

“No. Kendra finished a painting of a unicorn and Stan made apple pancakes to spite me when I told him he was only supposed to make nice food if we were about to die,” Warren corrects. “I forgot that an apocalypse sequel wasn’t actually unreasonable.”

Seth huffs. “Tell me about it. I remember when my biggest problem was that fairies didn’t like me, and before that, when my biggest problem was that Kendra didn’t like me.” He looked over at Warren. “Oh no, what did I do?”

Warren shrugs awkwardly. “You keep saying things that bring back memories of when I was twelve and everyone liked Dale more than me, and it’s giving me the really weird urge to wrap you up in a blanket and tell you everything’s going to be just fine and one day people will like you the best.”

“Will they?” Seth asks, choosing to ignore the rest of it.

“Nope. Well, some of them, but not all of them.” Warren slumps a bit. “Enough of them. This is turning into another emotional conversation.”

Seth shrugged. “Well, I mean, I have  _ so _ many other places to be-”

“There you go  _ again _ with the twelve-year-old Warren comments, yikes-”

“-so hey, why not tell you about my childhood.”

Warren hesitates. “I mean, I’ve never really heard the story about how you beat the revenant.”

Seth grins automatically. “In that case, I have the  _ best _ story for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

The watch Warren got him reads 2:34 in blinking green letters, and Seth leans back against the bush he’s sitting next to so he can appreciate how cool it is that he gets to see the numbers all lined up and if he saw 12:34, but it’s a rosebush and the thorns dig into his back, making him clumsily snap back up.

Warren had gotten the watch as a last-ditch effort to guilt him into sleeping, because he thought Seth would see the blinking numbers go from eleven to five and feel guilty, but all it does is give him another thing to stare at in the dark hours of the night he’s stopped being afraid of even if Midsummer is soon and he’ll have to remember to stay _inside_ as opposed to the winter solstice where only the tortured scream two inches from the front door a split second before he turned the handle stopped him, because Warren would get it out of him somehow and try to have another conversation with him about self-care or PTSD or something else Seth’s failing at and doesn’t care about.

But Midsummer is a week away and so Seth remembers what he came out here for in the first place and tries to stand. This is his fourth night without sleep so he’s wobbly but can still walk, trying not to lean on the bushes with thorns and doing it five times anyway just to see what it feels like(pain, and blood, like it _always_ does).

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” a voice behind Seth says.

“Hey Warren,” he replies cheerfully, turning around, “how’s it going?”

Warren is standing there with his teeth clenched like he wants to say something but it looks ridiculous and Seth is a _little_ woozy from four days of no sleep, so the brief giggle turns into full-on laughter at Warren’s _face_ when Seth start laughing.

“I’m- okay, not doing this, come with me,” Warren mutters, stomping forward to grab Seth’s wrist. “Alright you little- child, we are going to my cabin right now and you are lying down and sleeping because I think you’re dying, and I can’t let a kid die on my watch because my book club would use me as a ritual sacrifice so just- just come on.”

Seth yanks back, but Warren is taller(by an inch, maybe, but he’s also a trained warrior(and has probably slept in the last week)), and Seth stops tugging after a few minutes because _is that a monster?_ and just falls into the rhythm of steps and Warren muttering under his breath about stupid idiotic self-destructive children and pancakes until they’re standing in the door of the cabin and Seth snaps back into reality.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he protests, yanking his hand violently enough that Warren drops it.

“A bit late for that,” Warren counters.

“You dragged me here against my will,” Seth says.

Warren looks at him with something Seth recognizes as a mixture of pain and something else that’s probably exasperation. “Can you just go to sleep,” he says.

“No.”

“You need sleep,” Warren insists.

“I’ll sleep then,” Seth says.

“You need sleep now.”

“Nah,” Seth says.

Warren gives him another look, before crouching down and picking Seth up.

“Put me _down_!” Seth shrieks, lucid and struggling, but Warren is actually really strong(Seth can’t believe he’s being beaten by his _cousin_ , Adrien would punch him), but Warren looks- not _calm_ , exactly, more like he has no idea what he’s doing but isn’t going to let that stop him, and then Seth is dumped on the bed with a final, warrior shriek. The bed is soft and comfortable, the room is calmly lit and Seth is angry at all of it, because he _hates_ sleeping and this isn’t going to make him, fight him. He turns to Warren. “Let me go.”

Warren, pulling up a chair next to Seth’s, _Warren’s_ bed. “I’m not going to make you sleep.”

“So you dragged me here and then carried me like a damsel in distress-“

“-Hey, I’d pay for someone to carry me around-“

“-Shut _up_ , for show?”

Warren shrugs. “Nah, I’m going to make you sleep tonight. But there’s no rush.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“You’ve been reading again,” Warren says, and Seth flinches. “No- that’s not what I meant. I know you read sometimes- I’m just, I hadn’t noticed-“

“Also an oxymoron, you can’t know something you don’t notice-“

“That sounds wrong,” Warren says. “Lies. But. Anyway. Do you, um, want me to get you any particular books?”

Seth squints. “Only if you promise not to make a grandiose speech about how I’m finally admitting that I’m not just some dumb kid and that I actually love reading.”

“You got that talk too?” Warren asks. “I think I threw away eight books out of sheer pettiness because of that talk. Scarred for life.”

Seth stares at him for a second. “You got it too?”

“‘Course I did,” Warren says, “and the talk about how I’m inexperienced and ruinous without my wise old relatives, and the talk about how my friends aren’t as important as the cause. It’s a natural part of growing up the irresponsible younger Sorenson. Pancakes?”

“Pancakes?”

Warren nods. “This went better when we broke out the food, so this is a preemptive measure,” he says solemnly, and Seth laughs. “See? Works like a charm. C’mon, the kitchen is in here.”

Warren grabs Seth’s wrist again, but it’s lighter, and Seth lets himself be dragged into the kitchen, only insisting on pulling out his _own_ chair. Out of habit, he tries swinging his legs, but ends up hitting the floor and yelping. Warren huffs a laugh at Seth’s offended look and opens a cupboard.

“So, do you like reading?” Warren asks, pulling a bag of brown powder out of the cupboard.

Seth shrugs. “I guess,” he says, looking down at the table. The words feel sticky in his mouth and he braces for the inevitable mocking comment, but Warren just hums.

“Same,” he mutters. “I mean, I don’t _hate_ it like I used to, but-“

“But the librarians in your town never knew your name?” Seth finishes, and he sees Warren crack a smile when he looks up.

“Yep.” Warren dumps the brown powder into a bowl without measuring it out and then grabs a quart of milk from his tiny fridge. “And you know what? I’m perfectly happy with that.”

Seth raises an eyebrow, and even though Warren isn’t looking at him, he can probably feel the _what_ radiate off him.

“I don’t need to love reading,” Warren clarifies, pouring the milk into the bowl. “Never needed to. Stan told me I’d come to love it, but I didn’t, and there’s no hole in my heart. I read the odd mystery novel and that’s fine.”

It’s the stupidest thing- it’s _reading_ , but the fact that Warren _said_ it, said what Seth’s been thinking and tells him it’s fine does something and it feels like someone’s given him a warm blanket when he was sitting outside in winter.

“My friends never liked reading much,” Seth says, because he’s not quite ready to say _thank you_ to Warren for any of this. “I mean, Adrien liked it, but Adrien was a nerd. Will couldn’t even read that well, and Tip couldn’t focus long enough to get through a book.”

Warren, grabbing a fork and looking as if he’s going to try to make pancakes with it, laughs. “My friends were almost the same, to tell you the truth. Except one of them, Tony, actually _couldn’t_ read. I tried to teach him with comic books, but we both ended up getting bored and playing catch instead. When my parents found out, they told me I shouldn’t talk to him any more because people like him get in trouble.”  
“And you listened, of course,” Seth says.

“Well, I nearly did,” Warren laughs, “but you see, there was this awesome loose board in our fence. . .”

“Couldn’t be helped.”

“Unavoidable,” Warren agrees. “Chocolate chips?”

“ _Yes_ ," Seth says. “Chocolate chips at midnight, this is great.”

Warren stiffens a little. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Even better-“

“You should be in bed,” Warren groans, “it’s three in the morning. I’m a terrible role model- _it’s three in the morning_ ,” and then Warren is just kind of glaring viciously at the bowl of pancake mix and Seth doesn’t know what to say(“Gee cuz, sorry I’m a failure!” is what he _wants_ to say but it’s too bitter and Warren already looks hurt), so on impulse he stands up, bangs his knee on the table, winces, and stalks over.

“You are _not_ a bad role model,” Seth says. 

Warren groans again. “I don’t need my teenage cousin to comfort me.”

“I’m offering my services free of charge then,” Seth says, because he can do this, he’s good at lightening the situation. “You’re officially allowed to whine about how terrible of a person you are for making me delicious pancakes. Go.”

That gets a laugh out of him, and Seth feels a weight lift off his shoulders because it’s not about _him_ and his failures. “Alright. But can you go to bed at some point today?”

“No,” Seth says cheerfully. “Never.”

And this time the look of exasperation Warren gives him is unmistakable, and Seth laughs in the face of it.

“You terrible, terrible child,” Warren says, straightening up so he’s looking down at Seth. “I am _not_ giving you chocolate chips.”

He grabs them out of the cupboard five minutes later, dumping half the bag in and turning on the stove.

“The worst,” Seth agrees.

The pancakes are good(everything Warren cooks is good, because he adds _things_ to it, and Seth gets the feeling most of his cooking is throwing ingredients into a pan until they taste good which isn’t the same as his grandparents’ immaculate recipes but is better somehow because who would’ve thought that chili powder and chocolate in pancakes was a good idea?), and Seth dutifully pretends like he doesn’t see that his pancakes are twice as big as Warren’s, and acts like the bite of pancake he very clearly saw Warren shoving onto his plate when he blinked was always there.

Warren sighs when he’s done. “Look, I know the whole ‘horrible nightmare’ thing makes it hard to sleep, but.”

“But?”

“But you’re also a _kid_ ,” Warren says. “You’re a teenager. You need to sleep.”

Seth laughs, but it sounds bitter. “You’re a knight of the dawn. Don’t you have nightmares?”

Warren clenches his teeth. “Yeah, but they started when I was _twenty-five_ , because my parents had the common sense not to make a _child_ fight their battles for them. You’re too young for this.”

“They didn’t want me in the war-“

“Oh, sure,” Warren snaps. “They didn’t _want_ you in the war, but it’s not like when they saw that you were going to cheerfully march off to your death they went ‘hey, maybe _protect the literal child_ ’, no, they knew you were going to look death in the eye and they thought ‘control’ instead of ‘prepare’”.

Seth blinks. “Um.”

“I-,” Warren starts, gulping. “I just- I was _twenty_ , Seth. The first time I nearly died, I was twenty years old. You were eleven. The first mission I went on I was armed with a gun and seven years of practice on how to use it, and the first mission you went on was armed with a pair of pliers and a potion you didn’t even know the ingredients of, and I know you chose it and I’m not saying you made the wrong decision because _somebody_ had to save the world and you were brilliant, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s something wrong when a teenager saves his entire family and they tell him he shouldn’t have broken the rules.”  
Seth doesn’t _want_ to think about that, because the worst part is that it sounds true and Warren’s just spit out this entire rant about how his grandparents were the ones in the wrong and _no, does not compute,_ because Seth has been the irresponsible teenager his entire life and he is _not_ stopping now. “Grunhold was a terrible plan.”

“Grunhold was a miracle and you’re a genius,” Warren says. “It was dangerous and stupid and you pulled it off with an ease I couldn’t have managed with half a decade under my belt.”

“I’m not a genius,” Seth says. “The highest grade I’ve ever gotten in a class was a B.”

“You figured out how to reason with an ancient spirit who ran a death-boat to an island full of demons and ended up scaring _her_ ,” Warren says. “You trapped a leprechaun. You’re a genius. Admit it.”

He’s _blushing_ , Seth realizes. “This is stupid.”

Warren screws his eyes shut. “Seth, you remind me of myself, except, like, nine times cooler. You also remind me of myself in that it took me twenty-three years to realize I didn’t have to be a carbon copy of my responsible older sibling in order to be a human being rather than an annoyance. It’s- it’s messing with my head.”

“I’m a human,” Seth protests. “I think. There’s the shadowcharmer thing.”

“ _And_ you’re a-“ Warren mutters. “Just. You’re a miracle. And a genius. Just a generally all-around cool kid. I’m- I’m sorry.”

“Oh no, what are you sorry for now,” Seth says. What is he doing. What is life. Why couldn’t Warren just let him die from malnutrition and lack of sleep.

“I’ve dragged you into a solid half-hour of sharing my emotions?” Warren replies. “I _should_ be bullying you into going to sleep. I’ve got a full half-inch on you. This is gonna be _great._ ”  
Seth feels the burn of awkwardness be replaced by dull terror. “Don’t you _dare_ pick me up,” he warns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell i'm bitter yet? i'm really bitter about seth sorenson. like, the boy saved his entire family when he was like twelve, and spent the entire series getting constantly berated for, you know, actually strategizing on his own and doing messy work and being creative instead of following orders. i mean, i know they're kids and all, but remember that one time when seth used his newfound abilities that he was terrified made him evil to help the preserve to prove himself and then got insulted for it and basically told that they were gonna use his hard work, leave him out of it, and imply that he was useless??? because i sure do and i am Bitter about it  
> i'm so sorry @ the one commenter who just wanted some good, pure seth/warren bro feels. you did not deserve my bitterness


	3. Chapter 3

Seth knows that Warren’s been driving everyone away from him for the last three months. He knows, and he’s really, really grateful for it, but he can’t shake the sinking feeling of guilt. It usually doesn’t hit him until he looks up from a dime-store thriller Warren tossed at his head and realizes that he hasn’t talked to Kendra for five weeks or he goes for a walk and sees the house in the distance.

He can’t avoid them forever. He doesn’t want to. He wants Kendra to hug him and ask if he’s okay and he wants to taste apple pancakes and he wants- well. Seth’s not really ready to admit out loud that what he wants is to feel like a normal kid.

So he hides behind excuses that always appear miraculously at the last minute and he cheerfully promises Warren that he’s fine staying alone when Kendra’s supposed to drop off potion ingredients.

Today’s is that he’s horribly sick. Seth saw the look on Warren’s face when he had a coughing fit and told Warren he was dying. He liked to interpret it as the ‘wait when has severe injury ever stopped you from doing reckle- oh’ look Warren usually got when he purposefully played up why he absolutely had to stay inside and could Warren please negotiate with the satyrs closer to the window, because Seth had to be able to make funny faces at them but couldn’t give them the human death-virus, thanks.

Newel and Doren noticed that he was being overdramatic, but commented to Warren that it was a pretty Seth thing to do, and did he know that Warren was too much of a rebel to care if he had batteries? He knew their trade partnership no longer included them, right?

A knock at the door semi-startles Seth out of the building his mind was jumping off of.

“Special delivery for the two idiots,” Kendra says.

Her voice sounds weird. Laced with some kind of emotion. Seth won’t get into it if he doesn’t have to.

He opens the door. Kendra’s standing outside, holding a jar full of leaves and a rock that looks like it might be faintly glowing.

“Warren’s not here,” he says.

“Good for him,” Kendra replies. “So, gonna let me in or not?”

Seth doesn’t want to for a million terrible reasons. It’s symbolic, his last safe haven being disrupted, never mind that she’s actually been here a lot, the _symbolism_. She still kind of scares him because he knows he’s making excuses and she can call him out on it, never mind that she probably should. He’s not feeling it right now, never mind that-

“Yeah,” he says, stepping aside to let her in.

She sets the things down on the floor and sits in the folding chair nearest the door, and Seth thinks about protesting because dude, that’s his chair, but doesn’t.

“Soooooooo,” he says. “Weather’s been nice.”

“Would you know?” she asks.

He grimaces. “I’m sick, okay? We have a window.”

“We?” Kendra asks, in that familiar tone that means she knows he’s doing something she doesn’t approve of and is going to find out what it is.

“Yep. My roommate,” Seth says, lying on impulse.

“Warren?”

“Yeeeeep. That guy.”

“Nice to see you’ve moved in so quick,” she mutters. “You don’t sound very sick.”

Seth coughs violently. It’s perfect timing, but he knows it’ll look orchestrated to anyone who couldn’t see that this was clearly fate deciding to be awesome.

“Knew you were faking,” Kendra says, not understanding art.

“I’m feeling really attacked right now,” Seth says. “You should think more about your hurtful opinions, dear sister.”

“You should think more about keeping in contact with your family,” she fires back, “or are you and your _roommate_ going to keep telling us where the door is forever?”

There’s a pause as they both realize what she said. Seth feels another wave of guilt. He left them hanging for three months. That was terrible, and getting called out on it feels. . .bad. It’s not like when he gets in trouble and he feels hurt and angry, because he deserves this. He wimped out, big time, and he deserves this. He can’t just swing back and forth between mocking Kendra and telling her to leave and-

Warren runs through the open door, skidding, _actually skidding,_ to a stop between them. “CameasfastasIcouldsorryforthewaitSethareyouokayyoulookhalfdeadagain-”

“Hello?” Kendra says, somewhat stiffly.

“Hey, Ken,” Warren says, out of breath, smiling miserably. “You got the stuff?”

“Yep,” she says, gesturing to the floor.

“So you’re good to go, then?” Warren says.

“I wanted to stay and talk.”

Warren’s pained smile turns halfway into a grimace. “Okay, but Seth and I were just going to try out this new potion stuff, and I know you have no class and hate musicals, so-”

“Fine!” Kendra says, throwing up her hands and stomping out.

Seth squirms.

Warren untenses. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have driven her away without asking you.”

“It’s fine,” Seth says quickly. “I just. Well. She’s not wrong. I’ve. . .been. . .avoiding her. And Grandma and Grandpa. And, well, everyone, I guess.” He sort of folds in until he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I feel bad about it. I just keep doing it anyway, feeling bad about it. Really smart. Genius move. Working out well.”

Warren hesitates, but sits down next to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “It’s okay.”

Seth looks up.

“We’re getting better at this whole emotional conversation thing,” he says solemnly, “and that scares me. Let’s go back to that thing where we pretend it’s not happening. And where I get food.”

He waits for a laugh or something from Warren, but they both just sort of sit there in silence for a bit.

It drags on.  
And on.

And on.

“Okay,” Warren says. “I’ll make you some food if you want.”

Seth remembers to cough, and nods.

While the rice is cooking, Warren drops his latest dime-store thriller on the table for Seth to read and grabs the recipe Tanu gave them for a simple light potion.

“Like glow-in-the-dark paint,” Seth says, “but magic, and therefore inherently way cooler.”

Warren nods absently. “Pretty much.”

So they add enough paprika to the rice that Seth starts coughing in earnest and they measure out the ingredients. They talk about how much spice is too much and what they’re going to do with all this cool magic paint and how many leaves this needs and if they should get a rock knife and if rock knives are things and designs for rock knives and Seth almost forgets the rest of the day.

“Get this,” Seth says. “We take our super cool potion, and we take our super cool rock knife, and we _mix them together._ ”

“Amazing,” Warren says. “What do we do with it?”

“Admire it. Worship it. Throw it at Verl.”

“You know, if we got in the right trajectory,” Warren says, crumbling ash into the bowl, “we could get it right in the middle of him and Kendra.”

It breaks the mood.

Seth gives a half-hearted laugh.

“Sorry,” Warren says.

“No worries.”

“Do you want to. . .?”

“Not really.”

Warren gives up, or maybe makes his peace with it, because the next thing he asks for is the pestle.

Sometimes Seth kind of wants Warren to drag his feelings out, because he says nice things and he understands being the kid nobody’s particularly impressed by or really wants to deal with, but he’s not ready for some of it. Like the stuff with being the kid nobody wants to deal with.

He gives another exaggerated cough.

“I’m dying,” Seth says. “I need medical attention via chocolate chip chile ‘cakes immediately.”

“We literally just made food,” Warren says, but seems to make a decision. “I’m tired. Make it yourself.”

It’s not a good solution. He feels disappointing for making it.

He decides he can deal with disappointing everyone for another night, and if Warren is going to telepathically sense that he really doesn’t want to talk about it right now, then honestly? Thank the heavens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sick and wrote this on a school computer so this is probably terrible but! i got a chapter out! it happened!  
> also i realized seth just straight-up didn't talk to his family for months and i should :/ probably address that  
> i should also probably address that if i continue this there are at least three chapters before seth makes any decisions concerning himself he doesn't hate so if self-loathing and the author's clear, unfailing bitterness aren't your thing then apologies this is not the fic for you


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow look it's some notes At The Beginning i am really changing things up  
> happy discount chocolate day everyone hope you enjoy my attempt to portray complex family relationships that are unhealthy but the people still want to be in a relationship

Courage potions were supposed to be Seth’s _friend._ This courage potion, in fact, was supposed to help Seth confront himself as a person. Warren had said it would help. Warren very clearly said “You’re afraid of yourself and that’s probably bad”, which clearly equaled a courage potion. Obviously.

So, in conclusion, _how dare the courage potion betray him like this._ How dare it wear off in the middle of him talking at Kendra.

“And I’m sorry for dropping off the map-” Seth says, stopping short. He looks at Kendra. He looks at the room around them. He looks at his grandparents.

“Seth?” Kendra asks.

Seth looks back at her, wide-eyed. “Yeah?” he squeaks, looking very hard at Kendra’s hair and that really nice bit of hair that is not Kendra’s eyes, face, or any part of her that’s currently looking at him.

“You were saying?” she asks, seeming genuinely worried.

“I was?” he asks, his voice cracking.  
_Well, this wasn’t the plan_ , a deep, dark, inner part of him says.

_That’s probably because there was no plan,_ another deep, dark, inner part of him says. _That was maybe bad._

Seth takes a deep breath, ignoring anything in his gut that even looks a little bit like fear. He’s a war veteran. He can be nice to people. Besides, if all else fails, he has Lawyer Seth. If he can just remember exactly what he’s saying, he’s gold. Yep. That’s what going to happen.

“I’m sorry for dropping off the map,” he says. “That was a bad thing to do. I just needed some time.”

“You needed three months?” Kendra asks.

“Yeah,” Seth says. “I was having a hard time.” He really hates admitting that. It took him a month to stop protesting when Warren said “you’re having a hard time”, and another three weeks to admit it, to himself, of his own free will, without dying. He’s pretty proud of himself.

Surprisingly, Kendra nods. “Okay. Okay.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Grandpa Sorenson asks. Seth jumps.

He also freezes for a second to think. _You should’ve noticed?_ Accusatory, bad plan, not really true, unfair. _I was having that kind of a hard time?_ Bad. Not fun. _It just escaped my mind completely?_ Running out of time, why not.

“I didn’t think to,” Seth says. “I’m sorry,” he adds, because he really, really is.

He looks at the three- _four?_ He sized the room up wrong the first time, that is _definitely_ Tanu sitting in the corner, when did he get here- people in the room for a response. Kendra looks relieved(nice!), Grandpa looks doubtful(curses, foiled again), Grandma looks relieved but doubtful(counting it as a win!), and Tanu looks proud(probably good!).

“Thanks,” Kendra says, and that wasn’t really a coherent response, but that’s also usually good. Seth is racking up a lot of wins today.

“This is a bit out of nowhere,” Grandpa says. “I wish you had told us, Seth.”

“Again, sorry,” he says. There’s no response to that. _Yeah, me too, give me the time-turner and I would’ve totally been on board with that except for the whole causing a paradox maybe thing_ is too sarcastic even if he means it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say here.”

“I forgive him,” Tanu says. “Even if he didn’t use courage potions in a strictly advisable way.”

Seth smiles uncomfortably. That explained why there was a courage potion in the cupboard a lot more than anything else he’d come up with. “What gave it away?”

“It was either that or you were knockout drunk,” Tanu says. “I chose to go with courage potion for the sake of my and everyone involved’s sanity.”

Seth kind of wants to laugh, but he’s still smiling uncomfortably, and the room is uncomfortable, and Lawyer Seth is being noticeably unhelpful.

Kendra is glaring at him.

If Kendra never glared at him ever again for any reason other than a truly horrible pun, Seth would like that. He really would.

She’s still glaring at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Story of his life. Usually in a cool, good way. In fact, he’s usually much cooler than this. “I killed a dragon,” he says quietly, to himself.

Kendra’s _still glaring at him,_ but now she also looks like she pities him.

“I’m _sorry,_ ” he says. “I’m sorry. I was just discovering my deep desire to become a shadow hermit, you know? Living in the shadows, hissing at anyone who tried to defeat me, demanding offerings of soda and video games from unwary travelers. . .it sounded like the life.”

“You were hiding out in your cousin’s cabin until you got drunk on a courage potion and decided to confess your feelings,” Kendra points out.

“Baby steps.”

He means it as funny. It is supposed to be ironically, self-deprecatingly hilarious like Seth himself and therefore all of his humor.

Kendra looks at him, pitying.

_Courage potions were supposed to be his friend._

“Okay,” Kendra says. “Okay.”

Seth doesn’t know what to do here. That’s not exactly new- the last time he remembers making a coherent plan was when Adrien got into cryptids and asked Seth to help him catch Bigfoot. Still. The realization that he is completely lost is unwelcome.

“What’s okay?” he asks. “Is it me? Is it this situation? Is it my apology?”

Kendra sighs, and he regrets saying anything. “I’m telling myself I’m okay, but you too. We were just worried, you know?”

Seth shrugs. “Okay.”

He realizes what he’s done after he says it. He realizes he’s laughing a few seconds later. Then Kendra sighs again and starts laughing too, and the tension in the room he didn’t realize was pressing so tightly snaps.

“Maybe,” Kendra whispers, “okay will be our-”

“No,” Seth says. “ _No._ ”

It’s nice, he thinks. He missed making bad jokes. He really didn’t miss having to get through a mountain of feeling like a terrible person before he got to make bad jokes, but he missed this.

“Anyone want a chocolate smoothie?” Tanu asks. “It turns out we have a blender.”

“They’re called ice blendeds,” Seth says.

“No they’re not.”

-

The paperback hits Seth in the side of the face.

“ _Ow!_ ” he yells, and jumps up to see Warren standing completely still in the doorway with two canvas bags.

“Whoops,” he says quietly.

Seth doesn’t know how to react. “Italkedtoeveryoneyesterday,” he says instead of an answer.

As soon as Warren figures out what he’s saying, he raises an eyebrow. “Oh,” he says. “Cool. Did you. . .have fun?”

“Not overall? The chocolate smoothies were pretty good, though.”

Warren drops both bags. “That sounds like a pretty cool story,” he says. “Want some eggs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably a good time to remind you all that a) i am, in fact, the unreliable narrator character in this fic i started on a whim and b) i'm aware of the fact that canonically, seth likes his family but c) due to projection purposes and also the fact that they are sometimes terrible to him, most of their interactions end up feeling like that Classic Western Scene where two white guys in cowboy hats are stalking towards each other planning to die rather than address their emotional issues and no, i'm not changing that  
> ALSO this is a good time to mention that my outline for this fic is a google doc with "seth sorenson learns to love himself through the power of that magical food you make at two am because you've lost control of your life" in comic sans which explains some things for you i hope  
> oh yes and additional fact: the ice blended vs. chocolate smoothie debate is one that i've been having with myself because our local coffee shop calls them that and starbucks probably has copyright on frappucino or something but really???? ice blended???? it's a chocolate smoothie old sports

**Author's Note:**

> what am i doing? unleashing all my stress on fictional characters, obviously.  
> this was supposed to be two hundred words. it is two thousand.


End file.
